


Sa Shume Deshire Une Kisha

by carolinelamb



Category: Casino Royale (2006), Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, James Bond (Craig movies), Tempo (2003)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Bottom Hannibal, Bottom Le Chiffre, Denial of Feelings, Dom/sub Undertones, Feelings, First Time Bottoming, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hannigram - Freeform, Hate Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love, M/M, Pining, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rentboys, Rimming, Romance, Sex Work, Tempo Royale, Top Jack, Torture, Verbal Abuse, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2018-11-30 13:23:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11464476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinelamb/pseuds/carolinelamb
Summary: Jack learns the hard way that no one gets away with stealing from Le Chiffre.Le Chiffre learns the hard way that he doesn't really want what he thinks he wants.





	1. Aperitif

**Author's Note:**

> Should you have overlooked it in the tags, please let me warn you again: this fic contains descriptions of violence, torture and rape. 
> 
> (Please let me know if I need to add more tags.)
> 
> Thank you in advance for heeding the warnings and please note that I love you and have your best in mind.
> 
> Many thanks to [Jessica](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedsilences/pseuds/Yggdrastiles) and [Static Raining](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chifuyu/pseuds/Chifuyu) for their awesome beta! All of the many remaining errors are mine!
> 
> Once more many thanks to [Static Raining](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chifuyu/pseuds/Chifuyu) for her beautiful edit! I'm very much in love with it!
> 
> Last but not least—many thanks to [claud](http://archiveofourown.org/users/awalkingdenial/pseuds/adreamitself) and their wonderful, lovely grandmother: They are responsible for the title of this story, the name of an Albanian lullaby. 
> 
> "Sa Shume Deshire Une Kisha" means "How many wishes I had". I hope my fic can do the beauty of the title any justice.
> 
> * * *

 

   

Vienna, 2006  

"It’s hard to believe you really thought you could get away," Le Chiffre says, adjusting his tie in the mirror, "I thought you smarter than this." 

Despite his arms being handcuffed behind his back, the boy blinks up lazily at him, as if the precarious situation he is in, does not concern him. 

"Looks like we both thought wrong, then. Who could have known you would hire a whole fucking army of thugs to get back some measly ten-thousand dollars? Surely you must have spent far more than the little cash I ever lost you." 

Le Chiffre bestows him a cold smile. 

"You brought my book-keeping into disarray. I seek to restore the balance. It doesn’t matter if you stole a cent of what is mine, or a billion. The numbers don’t add up. And I need them to add up." 

The boy is older now. 

He still looks young, although Le Chiffre knows he must be in his early thirties by now. He wears his hair a little shorter, but he doesn’t like his ears so it has to be long enough to cover them. He has always been vain like that. The jaw is stronger, broader, lessening the girlishness of his face. More stubble. Still the same pink lips, the same turquoise siren eyes, though. 

"Ah too bad then, I don’t have it," the boy says. "Blew it all on whores and coke." 

Le Chiffre finally turns around, revealing long, sharp teeth as he smiles. 

"I thought as much, seeing you are working the streets again," he replies, cheerful, "you have no restraint, and being on the run is expensive." 

"So what now? You’re going to kill me?" 

"Naturally." 

The boy snorts. 

"Naturally." 

Le Chiffre pours himself a whiskey, leaning against the dresser. 

"I will enjoy killing you very much, Jack." 

Jack laughs, not impressed, and Le Chiffre suppresses the urge to slap him. How typical of him to not see the danger he is in. Does he think he will walk away from this unscathed? 

"Of course you will. You always did. You have such awful, boring hobbies, just as you are an awful, boring man." 

Le Chiffre smiles again, as if Jack told him a compliment. 

"You have the unimaginative soul of an accountant," Jack spits. 

Even Jack’s insults are mediocre. Lacking. 

"I never expected killing you would be entertaining at all. More of an inevitable, tedious chore," he replies, sipping the bourbon. The burn doesn’t chase away the numbness in him. 

Jack shifts in his seat, shoulders tense. A distant, faraway look has entered his eyes. Le Chiffre knows this look. 

"However, now I am looking forward to it and I intend to savour every moment. I don’t get to enjoy many things these days." 

He empties his bourbon, puts down the glass and steps behind Jack, putting a hand onto his shoulder, then reaches down and gently plucks the thin steel pin out of Jack’s fingers he used to attempt to open his handcuffs with. 

"You have to update your tricks," he sighs. 

Jack doesn’t struggle, just glares straight ahead, purposefully ignoring Le Chiffre. Le Chiffre licks the slightly bloodied pin, places it on the table. He kneels down behind Jack and uncuffs him, examining the palm in which Jack has hidden the pin. A tiny drop of semi-coagulated blood sits between the two deepest lines. Le Chiffre licks that too, searching for any signs of disgust in Jack's face in the mirror. Jack hides it well enough—only his eyelids slide shut for a moment, and he swallows, then looks past Le Chiffre again. He cannot decipher the expression in Jack's eyes: layers of hatred and fear and disgust and something else. All these things meshed together so tightly eerily look so much like passion, Le Chiffre notes. 

In a fluid motion Jack brings his arms to the front. He opens and closes his fists, massages the wrists, the muscles of the upper arms, the soft skin of the underarm. Gripping the armrests he rolls his head back, stretching his back, then stares cooly back at Le Chiffre. Although Le Chiffre is a man of impeccable timing, he is momentarily at a loss. He has imagined this scenario differently: He can't tell if Jack's laissez faire stems from indifference or stupidity but it continues to anger him. 

Young men often exhibit a breathtaking faith in their luck. Be that as it may, he took precautions. 

With stiff movements he crosses the room, aware of Jack’s eyes on his back, and opens the cabinet, taking out a black, nondescript box. Slowly he saunters back to the table, ever ready to prevent Jack from committing the mistake of trying to overpower him. Le Chiffre puts the box down beside Jack whose eyes flicker towards it, and slowly opens it, smiling. 

"I have a gift for you.” 

Jack eyes the slim metal collar in it, embedded in black velvet. A black remote sits beside it with a dial in the middle and a row of rubberised buttons on top. "Come on, from the two of us, you’re the one who gets off on being collared," he sneers. Le Chiffre doesn’t dignify him with an answer, simply places the collar around Jack’s neck, gently lifting his curls in the back, the way a lover would. It closes with an audible click—the sound is not strictly necessary, but when the collar was designed he had insisted on it. (Le Chiffre imagined how, with prolonged use, Jack would come to recognise it, associate it with pain and suffering. He imagined how he would enjoy Jack’s eyes widen in fear, whenever he hears the closing mechanism of the collar.) 

"It looks good on you," Le Chiffre remarks, keeping his tone light, forcing himself to grin. 

His face hurts. 

He picks up the remote, playing demonstratively with the dial. 

"Fuck you." 

Le Chiffre presses a button. The effect is immediate. Jack tenses and arches up, shaking, his face distorted with pain and shock. 

He lets go of the button. 

"What the fuck, Le Chiffre," he wheezes. 

Le Chiffre waits until Jack quiets, reaching out, pressing a cool palm onto his heated cheek, then shows him the dial on the remote. 

"See?" he points at the position of the needle, "This was on the lowest setting. Can you imagine your pain, should I turn that dial all the way up?" 

Jack laughs through gritted teeth. 

"I prefer the rope. The one with the knot—you liked to sling it at a man’s balls—did you get bored of that method?"

Le Chiffre tilts his head, smiling, trying to not show his surprise at Jack knowing. How did he learn of it? Behind his mask-like grin he searches his brain but comes up with nothing—he had always protected Jack carefully from the darkest sides of his business.

"It rendered the men incapable of achieving an erection," he says casually, while his index finger plays idly with the dial, turning it up and down again. He pretends not to see Jack nervously swallowing whenever his thumb slides over the slightly rounded surface of the button. 

"Ah, let me guess—it’s probably tough for a cock-hungry, ageing, half-blind bottom slut with a shit personality to get laid, so one has to be creative, am I right?" 

Le Chiffre can’t help the grin stretching his lips. Sometimes his face twitches into this grimace, this monkey grin. It feels more like a sudden cramp than an expression of mirth. At least Jack has realised now how powerless he is. His initial dismissive attitude is replaced by seething anger. 

"Do you fuck yourself on them?" Jack’s tongue flits over his lips. 

"I don’t like wasting things," Le Chiffre says. 

"You sad, fucked up monster." 

Jack's voice is soft, like a caress. 

Le Chiffre lifts the remote, turning up the dial. 

"See," he says, "if I turn it up like this, you will lose control over your bladder. Increased sweat gland activity will lower the resistance of the skin. In some cases, people lose control over their sphincters as well and they defecate."

Jack snorts, but his eyes flicker to Le Chiffre’s thumb. 

"So that is your grand plan: You will get off on torturing me for a while. And then you’ll cum in your pants while watching me die. How original." 

Le Chiffre pushes the button, this time waiting a few seconds longer before releasing it. He watches Jack go through excruciating pain. The moment Le Chiffre turns the collar off, Jack slumps in his chair, his eyes glassy and wide. He is trembling. Just to test his reaction Le Chiffre plays with the dial, and Jack flinches. 

"Have you ever read about this experiment? I think it was conducted in the sixties. Dogs were given mild jolts of electricity they couldn’t avoid. Then they were put in a divided box where they could escape more zaps by jumping to the other side, but they didn’t try. They’d been conditioned to accept their fate." 

"Cool story, bro." 

"Torture is fascinating. It alters the brain on a fundamental level—the brain can repair itself but won’t ever fully return to the state it was in before." 

Le Chiffre turns the dial, up and down, and again, Jack cannot help himself, he is watching Le Chiffre’s hand carefully. 

"You will die in pain, Jack," he says, forcing another deliberately cruel smile onto his features, "alone and in unbearable, constant, ever-increasing pain. It won’t take long until you don’t know where you are, who you are." 

He reaches out, caressing Jack’s hair, the way a mother would—pushing a curl back behind his ear. 

Jack is watching his face. Le Chiffre knows this look on the face of his victims, when they try to assess if his threats are real. 

"On the second day I will begin with the main course. As for now, I am still trying to decide what it will entail." 

When Jack says nothing, Le Chiffre pushes the button again. This time Jack screams. 

This is enjoyable, Le Chiffre tells himself. I wanted this. I wanted this. And I still want this. 

He stops after a few seconds (but not because he cannot endure Jack’s screams. Only because it bores him. Only because in the end all of this is tiresome, always the same show, always the same script. Jack's pain is nothing to him, just as Jack is nothing to him.) 

Jack is panting now, his hair plastered against his forehead. 

"Tomorrow I will begin to peel strips off your skin, piece by piece, attach wires to the exposed flesh and electrocute you again. It's a very efficient method of inflicting pain." 

Jack’s laugh is slightly crazed. 

"You're fucking pathethic, but you know that, don't you?" 

"I promise I’ll stop while you are still alive—after all I want my dessert too." 

Le Chiffre rises and leaves the room, aware of Jack's eyes following him. 

The cage is standing on the top stairs in the basement. 

Rats are clever animals and he doesn't like their watchful eyes, so he covers the cage with a black cloth before he picks it up. He can still feel the bodies wriggling in there, hear muffled squeaks and their claws scratching at the metal bars. 

Back in the living room he places it on the table before Jack’s eyes and pulls off the cover, like a magician revealing a trick, observing Jack’s facial expression at the rats. 

"You have heard of this haven’t you?" 

He points at the heating device on top of the cage. 

"A beautiful traditional method: I think it was invented in the Elizabethan era but I might be wrong: The cage needs to be placed on to your chest. I will turn the heat up. The rats will gnaw through anything in their way to get away from the heat. And their only way away will be through your flesh."

Jack shakes his head. 

"The fuck, Le Chiffre, even you can’t be that fucked up." 

"Ah, but I am exactly _that_ fucked up," Le Chiffre assures Jack cheerfully. Just to make a point he directs the device at Jack—who flinches violently—but doesn’t press the button. 

"I would like to give you a choice, of course—for old times’ sake." 

Le Chiffre is momentarily distracted by Jack licking his lips. 

"A choice," Jack slowly repeats, a mix of hope and trepidation on his features, "I don’t think I like the sound of that." 

"You don’t have to like it. However, you have lost me a considerable amount of money, and since you do not have it any longer, I will extract my pound of flesh." 

Jack looks at the rats in the cage, then back at Le Chiffre. The fear turns his face ashen, dilates his pupils. 

"I will be dead at the end of this, one way or another." 

"Maybe, but _how_ you die is only inconsequential once you are dead. Believe me, during the days leading up to your death, every minute, every moment of pain matters." 

"At the end you’ll still put me down like a dog," Jack spits. 

"You deserve to be put down like a dog," Le Chiffre snaps, his voice rougher and angrier than he wants it to be. Jack watches him with curious, bright eyes and Le Chiffre turns to open the briefcase. He pulls out a picture of a girl, with short cropped brown hair and earnest hazel eyes. The name on the file he has on her reads "Jennifer Travile". Born 1979 in the US. Arrived in Paris in 2002. Jack moved into her flat sometime in 2005. 

Jack gets agitated. 

"What did you do to her?" 

Le Chiffre grins. 

"You need to ask?" 

Jack is at him in an instant, a blur of movement, and then Le Chiffre is on the ground, his head hurting where it has connected with the hardwood floor. 

"You fucking monster, I will fucking kill you." 

He is all bared teeth, naked fury and anger. Le Chiffre admires the broken nose from up close, the only flaw in Jack’s face.

"Let her go, she has nothing to do with you or any of this." 

Jack is glorious in his righteous outrage. 

"I don’t really care," Le Chiffre says, "all that matters right now is that I have her, and the moment you displease me, she will die." 

Jack sits back. 

"I could snap your neck right now," he says, but there is doubt in his eyes. 

"You can, and then she would die," Le Chiffre says, "but if you do what I say, she will live. I promise this." 

"What about me?" 

Le Chiffre stares up at him, blankly. 

"What about you? I have not made up my mind yet." 

Jack looks at him for a long while, then finally lets him go and sits down in his chair. When Le Chiffre sits up, he shows him the remote control he has taken out of Le Chiffre’s pocket. 

"You need to be more careful." 

He thinks he has won the the upper hand. Poor, stupid boy. 

Le Chiffre smiles, then gets up to pour himself a drink. 

"The moment you try to leave the house the collar will activate," Le Chiffre explains, "even without the remote. One step over the threshold is all it takes." 

Jack’s eyes flicker to the window, then back to Le Chiffre. 

"Bluffing, like always," he scoffs. 

"Bluffing is in my nature," Le Chiffre concedes, "you’re cordially invited to call my bluff." 

He gestures towards the door. Jack looks away, biting his lips, thinking. "So this is your deal. I do as you say—and you let Jenny go." 

Le Chiffre nods. 

"What is it you want from me? I can’t pay you back, you know that." 

"There is only one thing I want from you," Le Chiffre says, grinning as coldly as he can, "and it is between your legs." 

He takes another sip, then sets the glass down. He has imagined that he would feel giddy by now. Victorious. 

Maybe later he will. 

Jack stares at him in disbelief. 

"Are you suggesting you’d let her go if I agree to fuck you." 

"That is what I’m suggesting," Le Chiffre confirms. 

Jack laughs. 

Le Chiffre has expected as much. 

"You sad, pathetic, cock whore," Jack mocks him. 

Le Chiffre is in need of his inhaler but he left it upstairs. The air in this room is beginning to feel thin. It’s hard to breathe. 

"I give you my word," he says. 

"The word of a liar and a murderer, I know what you are." 

"Well, unfortunately for you, your options are limited." 

Le Chiffre really needs to get upstairs. He can feel that familiar sensation of being strangled from the inside, the onset of a mild asthma attack. 

"I let you think ab—" "I accept." 

Hiding his astonishment with an amused expression, Le Chiffre turns around. The ease with which Jack agreed was not planned. 

"I am tired of hiding," Jack says, then shrugs, "and if you decide to kill me I will have at least ruined you for other men. On the other hand, I probably have already." 

"Very well," Le Chiffre says, then opens the door, hiding his bewilderment at the somewhat unexpected turn of events. 

"Not sure if I’ll get it up without some coke and viagra," Jack adds in a casual tone. "You’re not getting younger or better to look at, Le Chiffre." 

Le Chiffre leaves.


	2. Amuse-Bouche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains non-con explicit sex.
> 
> Many thanks to [Jessica](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedsilences/pseuds/Yggdrastiles) and [Static Raining](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chifuyu/pseuds/Chifuyu) for their awesome beta! All of the many remaining errors are mine!
> 
> Many thanks to [claud](http://archiveofourown.org/users/awalkingdenial/pseuds/adreamitself) and their wonderful, lovely grandmother for the title of this story, the name of an Albanian lullaby.
> 
> * * *

This is what he has wanted for a long time.

And yet Le Chiffre is atuned enough to his own reactions to acknowledge he does not feel what he expected to feel.

He has noticed the discrepancy between his expectations and the reality of his reactions for a while now of course, with growing unease and bewilderment. Expecting at least grim satisfaction upon seeing Jack restrained, collared and tortured the triumph he has waited for so long feels strangely brittle.

Well. He _is_ enjoying himself. Maybe not to the extent he thought he would but it is good to see Jack brought low and to make him pay. 

(He cannot deny the resentment and anger at himself, lurkin underneath a layer of disappointment .)

Upstairs he finds his inhaler, takes his salbutamol. Sitting in his chair he waits for the medication to work his airways open, switches on the monitors and watches Jack in the living room, pacing like a caged animal.

The pressure in his chest does not subside, so he takes another hit.

He focuses on his breathing. Slowly his lungs de-cramp. The wheeze that has been building up in his chest eases. 

He undresses slowly and methodically: he hangs his suit jacket, unbuttons his shirt, stuffing it into the laundry bag, takes his watch off and puts it on top of the dresser, then bends down, unlacing his shoes and slipping out of his socks before he unzipps his pants.

Dispassionately he looks at himself, his fish-belly white body, the soft stomach, his ribs. An average body. An average cock. He has often wondered what Jack saw in him. Jack seemed to have liked looking at him. Once upon a time, he had kissed every inch of his skin. Slid his hand over his ribcage, dug fingers into his hips, palmed and squeezed his buttocks, catalogued, explored. He didn’t seem to have minded his body.

There had been moments, Le Chiffre recalls, in which Jack had looked at him with an intensity in his eyes reminding him of the way men looked at women in movies. Instead of feeling uncomfortable to be cast in the role of the receptive effeminate participant in an sexual encounter, he had felt something new, something heady. He had felt Jack was the first person to really see him. He saw all of him, all of his desires and wants and did not judge him for them.

Well, apparently he had been wrong about that.

Every now and then there is a boy, just like Jack, young and impatient and greedy. All these boys wear the same easy smiles and guileless eyes. They balance on tightropes, light footed, unaware, hiding daggers behind their backs.

And it’s Le Chiffre’s duty to make an example of these foolish boys, just to stop others committing the same mistake. There are so many of them, loose-limbed, lean, tanned, radiating overconfidence and an unjustifiable trust in their luck. 

Le Chiffre has lost count of how many of them rot in nameless graves.

_You play, you pay._

Jack, after all, is not so different.

This should not be so different. 

Finally, under the shower the tension bleeds out of him as the hot water sluices over him. Jack liked hot showers, and after a while showering with Jack Le Chiffre got used to them too. He has cleaned himself out before and resists the urge to clean himself out again—it's only nerves—just circles his hole with a soapy index finger. He knows he shouldn't (Jack has scolded him often for this habit) but he inserts it, pushing in and out a few times.

He wants to feel clean today.

He tries to stimulate his prostate and get himself into the mood but even after a few minutes his cock remains limp.

Jack used to be so good at that. Le Chiffre had never enjoyed sex much before, but after he had Jack in his bed, he had craved it. 

Jack did this to him.

Once, he remembers, he cancelled a business meeting in Switzerland because Jack called him on his mobile, whispering filthy endearments, begging for him. His men were beside themselves, but Le Chiffre cooly called the investor he was supposed to meet, sent one of his partners instead, and boarded the next plane back to Vienna.

He had lovers before Jack—pleasant companions, but he would have never aborted a business meeting for any of them. On his way back to his house he had looked at the passing landscape, the brightly lit refineries at the side of the highway in the setting sun, and realised he had somehow come to think of Vienna as his home.

Never before had he regarded any place, not even Albania, not the village he had grown up in, as his home. 

Now he had a boy. And now he had a place to call his home.

Ten months later Jack had taken ten-thousand dollars in cash out of his safe, his credit cards, and left in his prized Piollet 315, a unique prototype he had bought from the son of the builder of the car himself. 

(The keys were mailed to him a few days later, and the car was located in a garage in some village in Styria.)

He has to rummage in the cabinet under the sink to find the lube he is looking for. The thick consistence is ideal for extended sessions and rough handling. He squirts a semi-opaque, whitish dollop into his palm, dips his fingers in.

Lifting a leg, he rests his foot on the rim of the bathtub, and begins to open himself up—Jack loved to torture him by doing this as slowly as possible—often enough he’d lick him open, until he writhed and begged and moaned, but today Le Chiffre goes about it in a quick, efficient way. He wants to feel the pain of intrusion, so he doesn’t waste much time on stretching.

Le Chiffre does not get dressed again, instead slips into a black silk kimono—so short it barely covers his arse—belts it, then walks downstairs.

Upon seeing Le Chiffre in his kimono Jack throws his head back, laughing.

"God, you’re such a clichè."

Le Chiffre ignores him, pulls a chair up close to where Jack sits and handcuffs him to the armrests. Unceremoniously and with quick movements he opens Jack’s belt, unzips the denim and lays a warm hand onto Jack’s briefs. Jack hardens almost immediately under Le Chiffre’s touch.

"The signs of a talented performer," Le Chiffre remarks, "even able to perform under duress just like the true professional you are."

He can’t help licking his lips. Upon lifting his face he realises Jack is watching him.

"Looking forward to it, aren’t you?" Jack asks back. His eyes are burning with so much hatred and rage, it’s almost flattering. 

"Oh, I am," he informs Jack in his careful business-like tone.

"How long has it been?" Jack asks, "All this time was it just you and that stainless steel dildo you keep tucked away under your bed in its box? Have you fucked yourself with it, imagining my cock?"

"Your cock," Le Chiffre comments, "is the best thing about you, and as it turned out, the only good thing about you."

Under his ministrations Jack is erect and ready.

Beautiful, Le Chiffre thinks. How unfortunate this perfect specimen belongs to such a mediocre and vapid man.

"So no one got it up for sad, old Le Chiffre," Jack taunts him, "don’t worry, I’ll fuck you good. You’ll scream my name, you’ll forget your equations and numbers and finances, all you’ll think about is how often you can come from my cock."

"That is indeed my expectation, so don’t disappoint me."

Jack looks at Le Chiffre with narrowed eyes, but he begins to breathe heavily, whines a little whenever Le Chiffre strokes upwards.

"You murderous swine," he says under his breath.

Le Chiffre merely braces himself against the armrests on Jack’s chair and swiftly straddles Jack’s lap, sinking down onto his cock.

He got bigger, he thinks. The boy has grown into a man. The girth is … remarkable.

Realising he has closed his eyes he opens them, faintly displeased with himself at having been carried away so easily.

Jack is looking at him. His teeth are worrying his lower lip, and his eyes are dark, nearly black.

"Ready?" he asks, a smirk distorting his pretty features.

Le Chiffre hates to admit he needs time to adjust. The pain feels good but it’s overwhelming. His heart rate is speeding up. His sluggish blood starts to flow.

Jack closes his eyes briefly and hisses, but doesn’t move.

"Tight," he chokes out, "I think you’re even tighter now than you were then."

Le Chiffre ignores him, focussing on the sensation of his body. He feels so full. Something akin to heat begins to coil in his lower back, and too soon pure, animal pleasure begins to build.

Jack fucks into him, his hips twitching in controlled and perfect movements, just like he used to do.

Le Chiffre is dimly aware one of them is vocal, is moaning. He only hopes it’s not him.

Once his left hand slips from the armrest, and he slumps against Jack’s chest. He can feel Jack’s heart beat. Jack inhales sharply, turning his head away, unable to hide his disgust and hastily Le Chiffre steadies himself and removes himself from Jack.

No physical contact where it can be avoided, he chides himself, no caresses, no gentle touches.

Not like this.

He controls his movements by tensing and flexing the muscles in his thighs and calves.

They have fallen into a perfect rhythm, Le Chiffre notes, and doesn’t understand how the realisation causes an undercurrent of panic but it does.

Jack is watching him. Once again there is this curious expression in his eyes Le Chiffre can't read. 

"You’re close," Jack comments smugly, but his voice is ragged, "You’re starting to cum."

He is right. Le Chiffre feels himself convulsing a lot faster than he intended and then Jack moves upwards again, and he hits it perfectly, the head of his cock brushing that spot in a way no other cock ever could, and that sweet, sweet pressure feels so good, it’s the best thing he ever had, how could he ever have forgotten (but he didn’t). He doesn’t want it to stop but he needs it to stop now it’s too much he didn’t think it would be so good—

He pulls himself off, almost shoving Jack and the chair against the wall behind him.

"Thank you, that is enough for now," he says in the same tone he would thank the waiter for pouring him a glass of wine.

"What the fuck," Jack hisses in a low tone, angry and confused, "come sit back on it, you know you want to, it’s all you’ve been thinking about, right? Let's make you come, _Jean."_

__

__

Le Chiffre straightens, closing the kimono that has fallen open.

Jack’s naked red cock is glistening obscenely, looking painfully hard and twitching.

All Le Chiffre needs is one moment.

One moment that makes it all worth it and will … will repair him.

Outside, he leans against the closed door.

He hears Jack cursing and swearing at him.

Slowly he walks upstairs, hating how he needs to steady himself against the wall.

His legs are shaking.


	3. Potage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Le Chiffre is a fantastic fit with Adam Towers, but maybe Jack and Le Chiffre can get some love too! I really like to come up with unusual character pairings and hope others have thought of the same pairing and maybe uploaded some awesome content for them! I've clumsily named them Tempo Royale for myself, but I'm sure there are already other awesome pairing names floating around. 
> 
> I really hope at least some of you guys will be inspired to create something, anything with these two, fic or art! 
> 
> Many thanks to [Yggdrastiles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedsilences/pseuds/Yggdrastiles) for her awesome beta! All of the many remaining errors are mine! Sorry!
> 
> * * *

2004

For most of his adult life Le Chiffre didn’t have to purposefully avoid sentimental entanglements. They avoided him and he was glad to be alone.

He was just not cut out for the grand affairs of the heart. Too pragmatic, everyone who knew him said. Too cold, too aloof. Le Chiffre took secret pride in people thinking him unfeeling. He sometimes wondered if there was a person out there in the world meant to be loved by him, capable of making him feel. It was more idle curiosity than any real desire.

For his own sake he occasionally tried to feel more than physical arousal for his companions, but his half-hearted attempts never led to anything more than faint disgust and boredom. 

He did not mind immorality nor the absence of moral concepts at all of course—after all he considered himself amoral too, given that he was in a business where ethics were not a priority but with frustrating inevitability people turned out to be breathtakingly mundane.

In the early days of constructing the persona of Le Chiffre and leaving impoverished, sickly Jean Duran behind, his aloofness had been part of his performance but as the years went by he had come to think he was immune to passion. 

And then he fell for Jack like a schoolboy.

Le Chiffre often thinks of the beginning and tries to pin it down: the very moment something inside him must have decided to fall. As a man who disliked surprises he had planned every step of his life. Nothing was left to chance—not even the cards. Outwardly he playfully pretended to be lucky when his carefully calculated strategies unfolded and led to the desired outcome. Not many understood his luck at Poker. People chalked his winnings down to his ability to bluff but he always knew exactly where he was and where he would be, was always a step ahead of others. He only needed to glance briefly at the cards and knew their place as if they were whispering to him. People thought him gambling—but he never really was. When he sat down to play chess, he could see every journey each of his pieces would take. He was, at all times, in control. Every profit he earned, every chess game and every poker game he won, he knew he would win, from the very beginning. There was no luck or chance involved. And yet, at some point, he had not planned well enough. 

He wonders often enough, if things were set in motion the first time he set eyes on Jack. Or maybe even before. Maybe during one of these nights he spent alone in his empty, then nearly unfurnished Viennese serviced villa, playing chess with himself and getting drunk on cognac and vodka, he had allowed himself to become aware of his loneliness. There are always tiny cracks, invisible to the naked eye, but the cracks in Le Chiffre's walls had been wide enough to let the things that weakened him in. Maybe he was, unbeknownst to himself, at a point in his life where he was desperate to destroy himself.

(Jack was not supposed to happen.)

After Le Chiffre had arrived in Vienna, it took him a while to find good areas for male hookers. Most of the business happened in the internet these days, but it turned out some old school sex work was to be found in various parts of the city. In the area around the Viennese Prater, in some less affluent areas and the train stations he found young men from Romania offering themselves for a few Euros.

There were prettier boys to be bought of course, but he avoided them as they were also frequented by Vienna’s non-closeted gay clientele, men who did not bother to hide their preferences. 

A few times Le Chiffre visited a club in Vienna’s posh inner district. One time he got solicited by a black-haired boy with a devastating jaw line and curled lashes, reeking of JPG cologne as if he had showered in it. Le Chiffre, his barriers weakened by alcohol and a few lines of coke, sucked his cock in the toilet stall, shoved a fifty Euro bill into his Diesel jeans pockets, then hurriedly exited the bath room. A few minutes later, he spotted the same boy across the dance floor, socialising with a group of apparently drunk men and women. As he observed them, Le Chiffre recognised one of his former business associates in this group, a man who made his income by facilitating weapon deals. They were on bad terms since a project they had worked on together had fallen apart. He and his wife were chatting with the boy who waved, then winked at him. The man turned around looking at Le Chiffre, sneering. Le Chiffre left the club.

After that incident he only used cheap, nameless boys. He took them to hotels where one could rent the rooms by the hour, made them shower, sucked their cocks, got off. They thanked him politely for the generous tip he gave them. Most of them were straight (or at least told him so) and refused to do anything else—some offered to bottom, but named exorbitant prices. Le Chiffre was not interested in that anyway. In his brief stint in Vienna not many had ever offered to top, and Le Chiffre had never asked.

The first time he saw Jack he was walking along the busy Guertel, the beltway around the inner districts, close to the Westbahnhof Railway station.

A pretty boy, but Le Chiffre had draped many beautiful people onto the black satin sheets of his bed, like orchids. He could easily afford fine-boned, long-limbed fashion models and their coke-habits and in his younger years he had indulged—out of vanity mostly: some of the high end models and actors he had paraded as his "partners" had helped him to impress business prospects and secure important deals.

At first glance the boy had seemed unremarkable. 

A leather jacket, torn denims, a pack of Gitanes peeking out of the back pocket. Then the boy turned around, noticed the expensive black limousine and sauntered closer, delivering his line: "Do you want some company?"

He wore mirrored Ray Bans, which he pushed down slowly to gaze at Le Chiffre with perfect turquoise eyes.

To this day Le Chiffre remembers his vague disappointment when he saw how effeminate his face looked. Not his type, he thought then. He often recalls this moment deliberately–when he was still able to look at Jack with indifference and not be devastated by his beauty.

Le Chiffre asked about his rates and preferences. Anything off limits?

The boy laughed, then: "If you want me to shit on you, it’ll cost you five-hundred."

Le Chiffre didn’t laugh—just motioned for the boy to get in, already tired of him.

His driver, Kratt, discreetly closed the tinted window between them.

The boy introduced himself, without being prompted:

"Call me Jack."

He then asked Le Chiffre’s name. Le Chiffre didn’t reply and Jack didn’t comment on it, took no offense. Instead he just cupped his crotch and began to massage him with a warm, confident grip.

Wordlessly Le Chiffre handed him a fifty Euro bill which the boy folded and pocketed with one hand.

Le Chiffre offered him a drink, and Jack accepted a heavy tumbler with a finger breadth of whisky, sipped, then slid from the leather seat and knelt between Le Chiffre’s legs. He opened the zip of Le Chiffre’s wool trousers, then mouthed him through his briefs.

"Wow, that’s a nice cock," Jack commented, when he finally pulled out Le Chiffre’s erection, then swallowed it down.

He inhaled sharply.

After a few moments Le Chiffre was close. Jack encouraged his restless movements by pressing a hand onto the small of his back.

Hookers usually gave the best blow jobs, but Jack was even better than that. He had no gag reflex and deep-throated Le Chiffre with ease, convincingly looking like someone starved for cock and cum.

Shortly before Le Chiffre came, Jack pulled off.

"If you give me another fifty we can go to my place for an hour or so if you want," he said, his voice a bit rough, "we can fuck in a bed. It’s not far from here."

Le Chiffre hesitated.

"I’d love to have this cock inside me," Jack licked his naked shaft upwards, pink, wet tongue toying with the slit, "I’m gagging for it."

Jack looked up at him, and studied his face, then a knowing expression flit over his features.

"Or maybe you’d like something different, hm?"

He pulled himself up, straddled him, then opened the front of his trousers and pulled out a beautiful, pink cock. With a few pulls he was hard.

Le Chiffre tried to maintain his mask of impassivity.

"Do you like that?" Jack whispered, "would you like me to fuck you with this? Haven’t done this in a while, and my cock is hungry for a tight hole."

He continued to stroke himself, and a drop of white pre-cum appeared on his slit. Le Chiffre stared at it, fascinated by the milky translucent pearl, sitting on the pink tip.

Jack smiled.

Without taking his eyes off Le Chiffre, he swiped the drop off with his index finger, then licked it, sucking his finger into his mouth. 

He bent closer to Le Chiffre, who sat frozen.

"I guarantee you, I’ll make you cum," he whispered into Le Chiffre’s ears, "no one needs to know."

Le Chiffre didn’t know why his body tingled all over. He felt odd, lightheaded.

No one needed to know.

Before he consciously made up his mind, he nodded curtly, then said, "Let’s go, I’ll follow you."

Jack zipped himself up, stroking himself with a victorious grin through his denim, shameless about the visible outline of his cock. Le Chiffre, putting on black sunglasses, got out of the car.

Kratt opened the window, his face blank.

"Don’t wait for me. I will take a taxi back," Le Chiffre told him.

Kratt gave Jack a quick glance, then nodded wordlessly and closed the window again.

Jack was already walking away from the car, and Le Chiffre had to weave through the crowd to catch up with him. With every step he scolded himself for taking an uncalculated risk.

We’re all animals, he mused, as he followed Jack walk through the bustling Mariahilferstrasse. 

Jack was swaying his hips in an exaggerated way. Le Chiffre saw he wore cowboy boots.

We need to eat, sleep, fuck.

Why not indulge this once.

Jack waited at a corner for him, then turned into a steep, little, cobblestoned side street. The late afternoon sunlight fell slanted onto the facades, turned the windows above them golden. Jack stopped in front of a non descript building with graffiti on its facade. 

"See? I told you, I don't live far. Right at the Mariahilferstrasse, really central." 

In this light, Le Chiffre thought, Jack's eyes were of a brilliant, almost unnatural green. 

The elevator inside was modern and obviously new, but the rest of the entry hall seemed neglected if clean.

Jack rented a tiny studio on the fourth floor, with a kitchenette and a shower stall in opposite corners. The bed took most of the limited space. 

"Let’s take a shower together," Jack suggested, and undressed without waiting for an answer. He had a nice, hairless body, well enough maintained.

Nothing special.

Le Chiffre slipped out of his jacket, laying it on the chair, then unbuttoned his black shirt. When he opened his belt, Jack pressed himself against his back, gently finished unbuckling the belt, pushing down the trousers and his briefs.

Jack began to deftly stroke him, while pushing his cock against his buttocks.

"Feels nice, doesn’t it," Jack murmured into Le Chiffre’s ear.

He took his hand then pulled them into the narrow shower cabin.

The liquid shower soap Jack used smelled atrocious. Somehow the whorish scent made Le Chiffre even harder.

Jack knelt down, stroking his ball and cock, then sucking it gently. With a soapy finger he began to circle and caress Le Chiffre’s hole. Le Chiffre’s heart jumped.

He had tried to imagine how it would feel—had often inserted a finger into his hole while simultaneously fucking into his fist, and it had felt good, but he had never let another man touch him there.

He could not for his life, really understand, why he let it happen today. He briefly considered getting dressed and leaving, and yet he stayed. He spread his legs a little, giving Jack better access, and Jack began to rub his hole, agonisingly slow. After a while Le Chiffre realised he was pushing back against Jack, wordlessly begging him to enter him.

Jack deliberately took his time, swallowed his cock down the moment he pushed through the tight ring of muscle. Le Chiffre bit his lips, inhaled. Then Jack pulled it out gently again and continued to rub his hole, ignoring Le Chiffre’s heavy breathing or his tiny movements.

Jack let go of his cock, then started caressing Le Chiffre’s hole again.

The second time Jack entered him, he went deeper immediately, and Le Chiffre felt tempted to try and push him out.

"Sh," Jack said, then licked his cock, looking up into Le Chiffre’s face.

"It’ll feel good, just relax," he said.

He made a movement with his finger, stroking something, and Le Chiffre’s mind whited out with pure pleasure. The times he had played with his prostate before had always felt good but … the electrifying sensation he experienced now took his breath away.

When he came to himself again, he saw Jack looking up at him. He didn’t like that particular expression on his face—calculating, as if he knew something about Le Chiffre he himself didn’t. Usually he was the one who harboured the secrets of others, and who was impenetrable to others.

Jack smirked as if he had read Le Chiffre’s thoughts.

"I want to fuck you," he said, "do you want me to fuck you?"

Le Chiffre found himself unable to speak. Jack’s smirk deepened, and he moved his finger in circular motion, then pushed and Le Chiffre gasped.

"Yes, I think," Jack said.

He stood up, soaping his hands.

"Towels are over there," Jack pointed at the towel rack with his chin, and Le Chiffre stepped out of the shower cabin, moving like a robot, drying his body. When he was done, he simply stood, waiting.

Jack turned off the water.

Without thinking, Le Chiffre took the towel and began to dry Jack. Jack let it happen, smiling, and then when Le Chiffre was finished, he took his hand and led them to the bed.

For a moment Le Chiffre felt an unfamiliar awkwardness.

He examined the emotion, frowning, when Jack placed his palm onto his chest and pushed him onto the bed, then immediately crawled over him and kissed him, grinding his cock against him.

"Wait," he mumbled, stretched to reach the nightstand. Le Chiffre heard a drawer being pulled, while staring up at Jack’s smooth, hairless chest moving over him.

A part of him was still amazed to find himself here.

Jack deposited a bottle of lube and condoms on the bed, then unceremoniously spread a towel over the blankets. 

When their eyes met, Jack smiled at him.

With deft, confident movements he pulled Le Chiffre’s thighs apart and pressed his thumbs against his hole. Le Chiffre would have cried out in surprise, but bit his lips, trying to maintain his dignity.

Jack caressed him for a while, then bent down and licked.

This time Le Chiffre did cry out.

Jack gave him no time to adjust, to get used to this new shocking sensation—he inserted his finger again and began to stroke him rhythmically inside. Shortly before Le Chiffre wanted to reach down and stop Jack, afraid he’d come at any moment, Jack pulled out and added another finger. Le Chiffre leaned back on his elbows and watched his own cock, thicker and harder than he had ever seen it, drip something clear onto his belly. Every time more pre-cum leaked he felt a warm sensation travelling up his spine. Soon he felt himself wanting more.

Jack hummed, pleased and began to fuck him with his tongue. Le Chiffre let himself fall back onto the bed, losing himself more and more to the all-consuming pleasure, soon giving up on trying to not move—he arched his back, pushing against Jack’s clever tongue, wanting more.

Again, Jack waited until Le Chiffre was close, then pulled out his fingers. Le Chiffre’s empty hole clenched around nothing, longingly.

Jack took the lube, and Le Chiffre’s cock twitched.

Le Chiffre watched Jack deposit a dollop onto his fingers, then reach back between his legs and enter him again. This time Jack maintained eye contact. 

"I need to fuck you," he said, his voice rough, "you feel so good, so fucking tight."

Le Chiffre could only nod. He did not mind the rehearsed lines. 

Jack poured more lube onto his hole, then added a third finger. Le Chiffre hissed in pain and Jack stilled, soothing him by stroking his cock.

When Le Chiffre had adjusted enough, Jack continued moving, careful to stimulate his prostate. Despite the burning pain, the sensation of pleasure soon became overwhelming, enveloping his entire body, like thick honey being poured over his skin.

Le Chiffre realised he was writhing desperately against Jack, his body pleading.

"Do you want me to fuck you now?" Jack asked in a low voice.

Le Chiffre nodded, amazed by his body’s intense desire.

"Then ask me," Jack said.

Le Chiffre licked his lips.

"The way you twitch and clench around me tells me how desperate you are for my cock, but I want to hear you say it."

Le Chiffre wanted to shake his head. Jack, as if he knew, withdrew his fingers, very slowly, and then just circled his hole with his index finger. No amount of Le Chiffre canting his hips persuaded Jack to insert his talented fingers again.

"Say it," Jack said again, a smile in his voice.

Finally Le Chiffre gave in.

"Fuck me please," he said, barely audible.

He let his head fall to the side and saw himself in the floor length mirror, naked, his legs spread wide, dishevelled and flushed.

This doesn’t look like me, he thought.

Jack tore open a condom and rolled it over his erection, then began applying lube. When he noticed Le Chiffre looking he smiled at him.

"This is going to hurt a bit, but only in the beginning" he said, "and if you don't like it, you tell me and we stop." It took a while until it sank in that Jack had assumed—correctly—that this was his first time, but nonetheless, Le Chiffre felt foolishly determined to abuse Jack of this notion.

"I have done this before," he managed to say, baring his teeth in an unconvincing, forced grin.

"Sure," Jack said, then knelt over him, nudging his cock against his entrance.

"Ready?"

Le Chiffre nodded, bracing himself, tensing but trying to look composed.

Jack instead of immediately entering him, simply rubbed the spongy cockhead against his cleft.

Le Chiffre, half-heartedly still wanting to convince Jack of his experience in anal receptive sex, laid his hand onto Jack’s hips, arched against him and pushed himself deftly onto Jack’s cock.

"Shit, be caref—oh fuck!"

The pain was blinding, tearing him apart.

Above him he could hear Jack emit a low groan.

Resisting the urge to push Jack out, he pulled him in, locking his legs behind Jack’s back. He closed his eyes, trying to relax his muscles, to focus on anything else than this throbbing, intense pain.

Then he felt Jack’s hand on his cock, stroking it. back to hardness. Le Chiffre opened his eyes again—Jack’s cheeks were flushed, his lips a deep red.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked.

Le Chiffre wasn’t at all but nevertheless nodded.

Slowly, very slowly, Jack began to move, and every move felt like a knife stabbing into his ass. It took all of his self control not to betray his discomfort. It was not like him to endure pain when not necessary but he had wanted to know, hadn’t he?

When the pain got too bad his entire body tensed up, he shifted and clenched his fists.

Yet he still felt reluctant to abort this experience.

"Okay?" Jack asked again. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes completely black. Le Chiffre swallowed, nauseated from the pain. It was unreasonable to continue. Clearly his body wasn’t made for this.

But then, when would he ever again just decide to follow a hooker to his room to indulge his fantasies—out of a whim? If anything he would get through this and later use the visual memories when he was stroking himself.

He nodded again.

"Good," he said, steeling himself.

Jack shifted—"Wait," he murmured, his voice tight and his breathing shallow—he changed his position and slid deeper into him, then pushed—and then something happened.

Le Chiffre nearly convulsed—for a small moment the pressure grew entirely too much, but then he felt something inside him give and a beam of unexpected pleasure travelling through his entire body, upwards from his tailbone, along the spine. His toes curled, and he heard himself cry out, gasping. Above him Jack hissed a victorious "Yes!" and then he began to fuck him in earnest, in swift, brutal thrusts.

Every thrust activated that spot again, and Le Chiffre could not get enough—he tightened the leg lock around Jack, who laughed breathlessly, and fucked himself as hard as he could on his cock, wanting it deeper, harder, and it felt so humiliatingly good. He had never felt anything more perfect than this, had never felt so hungry for a sensation.

Le Chiffre’s hands were clawing the sheets. He hoped Jack would not come yet—he never wanted him to stop fucking him.

Finally when Jack began to speed up his thrusts, Le Chiffre became aware he was moaning in a way he had never done before, and he stopped, embarrassed, biting his lips.

"Come," Jack said, his voice strained, "do you wanna come now?"

Le Chiffre felt he had been coming all along, orgasming with every thrust. He was drenched in sweat, and so was Jack.

"Come on," Jack said, then shifted again, pulling himself closer to Le Chiffre and putting his legs onto his shoulders. Le Chiffre realised Jack was struggling to hold back.

"Does that feel good?"

He moved, and this time it was deeper, and Le Chiffre closed his eyes, struggling for breath.

When Jack slid in again, Le Chiffre came, convulsing, trembling.

"Oh fuck yes, I can feel you coming," Jack panted, delivering an especially hard thrust.

His rhythm became uneven—he moved in a frenzy, then Le Chiffre felt Jack’s cock twitching in his over-sensitive hole.

"Fuck," Jack cried out. His fingers dug deep into his hips. His eyes slid shut and his mouth formed a perfect 'oh'. 

He collapsed on Le Chiffre, breathing hard.

He could feel Jack's heart beating wildly and he realised he felt a strange pride at being the cause for this.

Le Chiffre was surprised when Jack scooted closer, then threw an arm over his chest and pressed himself close.

"Is this okay?" he asked.

Le Chiffre nodded and fell asleep immediately.

When he woke, there was no air in the room left—he gasped, instinctively reaching for his inhaler on his nightstand. Only after a few moments of reaching into empty space he remembered he was not at home.

"What—what is it?"

Jack’s frowning face hovered over him.

Absurdly he thought of how ridiculous he must look like, bulging eyes, mouth opening and closing, wheezing.

He felt his lungs constricting, seizing. The inhaler was in his jacket, he realised.

"Tell me what to do?"

Before he was able to answer, Jack seemed to understand what he was looking for and brought the jacket to him, kneeling beside the bed. Le Chiffre tried to pull the inhaler out, but it slipped out of his fingers and clattered onto the wooden floor. A moment later Jack pushed the mouthpiece between his lips, pumped a dose of salbutamol into his mouth, and Le Chiffre inhaled deeply.

He glanced at himself in the mirror, and saw his grey skin, the blueish lips, his hair plastered onto his sweaty forehead.

After a few minutes he felt his lungs relaxing, the spasms easing. Jack climbed back into the bed.

"Asthma?" Jack asked.

Le Chiffre managed to shrug weakly.

"It has never been an issue before."

Jack caressed his face, laid a warm palm onto his cheekbones, and looked at him, concerned.

"Hey, you gave me a fright," he said in a soft voice. He sounded like a lover, not a whore.

The boyfriend experience, Le Chiffre thought, I’ll remember to pay him more later, he’s good.

"What time is it?"

Jack got up and searched for his jeans, pulled out his phone and started cursing instantly.

"Do you need to be somewhere?"

"I overslept, I can’t believe I overslept!"

A glance at his own phone told Le Chiffre it was almost midnight. They had both slept more than four hours.

"Do you have an appointment?" he asked.

Jack shrugged.

"I should be working. Making money. That’s my appointment."

He had found his briefs and slipped into them. Le Chiffre admired the strong, muscular calves.

"Look, I’m sorry—I won’t charge you for the last four hours obviously … but I need to go."

Le Chiffre sat up gathering the sheets around his waist. He was sore and his ass hurt. Jack was running around in a hurry, splashing water on his face, spraying cologne into his armpits, looking for his socks, then rummaging around in a drawer.

It wasn’t the thought of Jack fucking someone else that made Le Chiffre bend down to look for his wallet. He barely knew the man. He just did not want to have to get up and dress right now.

"How much for the rest of the night?" he asked.

"A hundred?" Jack said.

Le Chiffre pushed the entire wad of cash he had found in his wallet into his hand, four hundred and seventy Euro.

"Then, is this enough?"

"Wow," Jack said, counting the bills and pocketing it, "Ok … thank you."

Le Chiffre couldn’t quite believe it, but he felt a familiar heat in his lower belly, a hunger that should have been sated for hours.

He tilted his head.

"Would you mind coming back to bed?" Then he added: "You can call me Le Chiffre."

Jack smiled, pushing his briefs down again.

"This is your night—what do you want to do?"


	4. Oeuf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much to Chifuyu and Jess for beta'ing this chapter!

Vienna, 2006

The sky over Vienna has turned a bleak slate grey and dark, heavy clouds are hanging over the vineyards in the distance.

For a while Le Chiffre just stands at the window looking at the skyline. He has never liked this time of the day—the stale grey hour before the sky turns indigo. Right before dusk, when the day's colours fade, when the world seems to be in a limbo. It's the time for regrets, for inner unrest he thinks often. 

As a child he had dreaded the long shadows.

When Jack had been living with him, he had started preparing dinner at dusk. He would turn on all the lights, put on music and mix himself a drink before sitting down in the kitchen to peruse his cook books. Usually he had sent Le Chiffre down the road to the supermarket for grocery shopping.

Often enough Le Chiffre would have to call Jack to clarify some of the items, and they would playfully argue and banter like an old, married couple.

When he came back home, Jack was already cutting and slicing vegetables, and the candles in the living room were lit. 

Le Chiffre had loved these evenings so much, he often stood in the street in front of his house before he went back in, just looking at the windows with Jack moving behind them and let quiet happiness suffuse his entire being.

After Jack had gone he felt his absence most keenly in these hours: When he was not there any longer to light the candles in the living room, and his chatter and laughter did not chase away the gloomy light of the end of the day.

Le Chiffre needs another shower. Five minutes turn into ten, ten into fifteen. He isn’t sure why he cannot move, finds himself unable to do anything but let the hot water wash over him.

Finally, almost half an hour later he manages to raise his hand and turn off the water.

He doesn’t want to be haunted by the past any longer. Capturing Jack was supposed to bring him peace.

(And it will, he tells himself again. Some things need time.)

Slipping into a bathrobe, he looks at himself in the standing mirror. He started dyeing his hair when it began to turn grey, a year or so after he had first met Jack. The thought of being the grey-haired elderly lover to Jack who was brimming with youth had been uncomfortable.

Now his chest hair is graying too. He’s turning into an old man. There’s no hiding it any longer. 

Funny, he thinks, how little he has actually lived. Time just ran through his fingers like sand.

He slips back into his kimono, belts it and makes his way downstairs.

When he arrives, he is greeted by Jack’s laugh. It’s oily, louder than he remembers it.

He ignores him with aplomb, turning his back to him while perusing his bottles of whisky, cognac and brandy. Finally he picks something peaty, one of those fancy scotchs, Kratt or one of his other men keep stocking the bar with.

Before he turns around again, Jack is on him, slapping the glass of whisky he just poured himself out of his hand. He can hear it shatter, and in the next moment his face is pressed against the table. Jack leans over him and weighs him down with his body. Le Chiffre can feel his heartbeat against the mahogany surface.

Oh yes. That will do.

Jack pushes the bathrobe up, then roughly palms Le Chiffre’s ass and slaps it.

"If only all those people who fear you could see you now."

Le Chiffre can’t stifle the moan escaping his lips.

"You’ve thought about it, imagined it, right?" Jack teases.

He wants to shake his head, but then hears Jack spitting into his palm. A moment later he can feel slick fingers pressing against his hole, Jack rubbing in the spit.

It won’t be enough.

Jack wants to hurt him. And Le Chiffre … maybe he wants to be hurt.

"You’re still loose from before," Jack comments. Without forewarning he shoves his hard prick inside and Le Chiffre cries out. For a moment Jack stills, fingers digging into his hips—hard enough to leave bruises. Later Le Chiffre will look at them, remember. And as long as they are visible he may allow himself to remember. And only once they are gone, he’ll be able to move on.

He braces himself against the table, then inhales sharply while squeezing Jack's cock.

Behind him he can hear Jack draw in shaky breaths.

"Fuck you’re doing that on purpose," he murmurs, "trying to milk me, hm?”

When Le Chiffre tries to move, Jack stops him.

"Oh no, you won’t," he growls, keeping him still, and Le Chiffre realises smugly, that Jack is close. He can feel his cock twitch inside him, eager to shoot his load.

"Hold yourself open," Jack commands him, and Le Chiffre reaches back and puts his hands onto his cheeks, spreading them.

Slowly, ever so slowly Jack begins to move.

With an ugly sound Jack spits onto his cleft, then fucks into him.

When Jack begins to moan and speed up, Le Chiffre feels himself responding. It’s humiliating, the way his body immediately recognises Jack and welcomes him.

"Did you imagine it like this?" Jack asks, "Hard to believe your big revenge plan was to get bent over a table like some random slut in a darkroom."

"Just be quiet and fuck me," Le Chiffre says.

Jack angles himself differently and when he thrusts in again, Le Chiffre’s entire body trembles with a familiar, overwhelming pleasure, his mind whitening out, despite the sharp pain of penetration.

It’s been so long.

Jack keeps fucking into him, always at the same angle.

"That’s how I always liked you best," Jack’s voice is suddenly too close to his ear, "presenting your pale ass like a bitch in heat, taking my cock."

Before he knows what he’s doing Le Chiffre’s insides have squeezed Jack’s cock again, and Jack pulls out, panting. 

After a moment he laughs triumphantly.

"You really love it," he says, sounding weirdly astonished, then rakes his fingers through Le Chiffre’s hair.

Le Chiffre arches his back, pushes back, wordlessly waiting for Jack to enter him again.

Jack seems hesitant for a while, just teasing his cleft and smearing more of his spit around. Finally he slides in again.

Le Chiffre notes the absence of pain this time. 

It is as if Jack knows exactly how Le Chiffre needs to be touched and suddenly he finds the awareness unbearable. He has had troubles achieving orgasms for the last few years, has almost forgotten how good being fucked felt—to be invaded and taken and fucked but Jack doesn't even need to try, doesn't even need to paticularly want him. His body adjusts so readily for Jack.

"That’s enough," Le Chiffre grits out between clenched teeth, and pushes Jack off.

Jack stills.

"You want me to stop?" he whispers.

Le Chiffre tries to catch his breath.

"Who are you torturing, Le Chiffre? Me or yourself?" 

Le Chiffre is almost satisfied to hear a crack in his voice.

He tells himself to get up and leave the room.

Jack stands behind him, the tip of his cock resting against his cleft.

"This is your night—what do you want to do?"

 

Vienna 2004

"I dreamed I was in your house."

Jack was in his arms, pressed against his side. Le Chiffre inhaled his scent, the slightly smoky smell emanating from his curls. He combed through them with his fingers, rubbed the warm skin behind Jack’s ears with his thumb.

"It was … you and I were at a party. At first I liked it. It was so friendly and warm. You were there, talking to people. I tried to make you look at me but you were busy. It got louder and louder. So many strangers. Somehow, a little later, I looked up and was suddenly in another room. It was dark. I was afraid. There was no door, only walls. I could hear you talking to your friends through the wall, and I could hear the party continuing, like music playing, the sound of plates, glasses, laughter. I called for you, but you couldn’t hear me through the wall."

Le Chiffre listened, quietly astonished Jack would dream about him. Was he lying to manipulate him emotionally? Le Chiffre tried to discern a reason for Jack to manipulate him.

Would Jack try to make Le Chiffre fall in love with him? Maybe he would. His youth was fading, and soon he wouldn’t be able to earn money with his body anymore. It was a long game though and he didn’t think Jack capable of playing the long game.

"Why would you dream something so terrible?"

Le Chiffre tightened his hold on him and pulled up the blanket that had fallen off Jack’s shoulder. When he realised that he was humming a nursery rhyme it was already too late. 

"What are you doing?" Jack mumbled sleepily.

Embarrassed Le Chiffre fell silent.

"Don’t stop," Jack whispered.

When Le Chiffre remained quiet, Jack lifted his head from his chest.

"It was nice."

"I have forgotten the words," Le Chiffre lied.

Jack searched his face, then shrugged.

"Bullshit."

"Do you often have bad dreams?" Le Chiffre asked to distract Jack.

"Doesn’t everyone?"

Le Chiffre never dreamed. The last time he had dreamed he had still been a child. Back then he had many nightmares, the way children do. Maybe Jack had nightmares because he was still a child—maybe in his life full of hardship his mind had never had the chance to grow up and it was still filled with the ghosts of his childhood days. Le Chiffre felt something in his chest shift, thinking of Jack this way.

Jack had suffered—Le Chiffre could see that clearly now.

"I think too often of the past," Jack murmured, "and of the things I've done. And the things I haven't—"

Le Chiffre patiently waited for Jack to continue. When Jack didn’t say anything, he gently petted him again, like a cat, unsure of what else to do.

Jack lifted his head.

He was crying.

Le Chiffre blinked. 

He felt his damaged eye leak blood. Before he could wipe away blood Jack moved closer to Le Chiffre’s eye, darted out a pink tongue, licking away the tiny droplet of blood, then kissed the corner of his eye.

"Sorry," Jack said, peppering his face with little kisses, "I want to make your time worthwhile. I should make you feel good."

He stroked Le Chiffre’s chest, then cupped his cock.

"I’ll make you feel good," he promised, and Le Chiffre didn’t like the nervous anxiety in his voice, the forced sultriness.

He took Jack’s hand away and held it, stroking the soft skin of his wrist with his thumb.

Tears confused him, but this was the first time they didn’t irritate him.

(He should have paid attention then, in this moment, should have realised how much Jack was changing him, slyly altering the very way his heart worked.)

Jack looked at him, confused and alarmed. Le Chiffre realised he was afraid to have displeased his customer.

"Sleep," Le Chiffre told him and to let him know he needn't worry, pressed a kiss onto his forehead. 

Jack asked, "Are you sure? We didn't get to do anything tonight."

"I'd like to book you for next weekend—if you have time—and then we can go on a trip together. How would you like that?" Le Chiffre asked. It stung him that Jack fretted. 

He looked a little less worried and hesitantly laid his head back down onto Le Chiffre's chest, but he still could feel his tension.

Finding himself out of his depth he began to hum. He remembered how his grandmother had always sung this to him, a strange, sad song to sing to a child. (And in her last days, he had sung it to her.)

_Sa shume deshire une kisha_  
_te ngrihem ne hapsire,_  
_si zog te fluturoja_  
_ne qiellin tim te lire.*_

The melody and the words came easily to him, as if he had heard them just yesterday and not more than fifteen years ago.

Soon he felt Jack’s head grew heavy on his chest, heard him starting to snore softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *How much desire I had to get up in space,  
> like a bird flying in my free heaven.


	5. Coquilles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is another update of the fic no one asked for.
> 
> But you know some things I just have to get out of my system until I can move on to other things.
> 
> Many thanks to the awesome Chifuyu (staticraining) and Jessica (Yggdrastiles) who beta'ed this chapter. All remaining errors are all mine, sorry!
> 
> * * *

Vienna, 2006

 

"Don’t tell me you had this tailor-made."

Arms crossed over his chest, Jack is standing in the doorway, clad in what Le Chiffre has ordered him to wear: a bright red nylon net top that leaves his nipples exposed, tight blue garter belts, a leopard miniskirt so short it barely reaches his hips. His cock, packed into sheer white lace knickers, is on full display.

"Did you order these online?" Jack asks, showing off the tasteless acrylic platform heels he’s wearing. Jack's pale feet are slender and long, bony. 

Le Chiffre smiles.

"You look almost perfect," he remarks, while mixing Jack a vodka tonic.

"I remember, you always liked this sugary, sweet stuff."

Jack takes the drink and downs it hastily, like someone ingesting a necessary poison. He grimaces as he sets down the empty glass.

"Another," he demands and licks his lips, "I need to be fucking drunk to get it up for you, old man."

Le Chiffre mixes him another one, using more vodka this time and watches as Jack empties the second glass in the same manner like the first.

While Jack is on his way of getting utterly and properly drunk, Le Chiffre makes his way to an enormous arm chair standing in the middle of the living room and sits down.

Jack turns around, staring at Le Chiffre with half-lidded eyes. His cheeks are flushed, his lips wet. Le Chiffre beckons him closer with a wink of his hand and Jack obeys. He makes his way over to where Le Chiffre is seated, careful not to bend his knees, but his ankles are trembling. 

When Jack stands in front of him, Le Chiffre curtly tells him: "Down," pointing at the floor.

Jack’s eyes burn bright with hatred and Le Chiffre wants to warm himself on this flame. 

He’s cold to his bones.

Jack lets himself fall to his knees. Gracefully, as he does everything. Such a vain boy.

There is a momentary tension in Jack, as if he plans to resist. They both know that, should it come to a fight, Jack could easily overpower Le Chiffre.

Le Chiffre only needs to tap the collar, little more than a slight brush, and all tension bleeds out of Jack’s body.

"Good bitch," Le Chiffre coos.

"You always liked it when I dressed you in Dior lingerie and Louboutin heels," he tells Jack, "but you can’t dress up trash no matter how expensive the clothes. Once trash, always trash. That’s why I chose this as your attire for tonight. Something to bring out your true nature."

"Speak for yourself, Le Chiffre," Jack hisses.

Le Chiffre pushes Jack away and rises from his seat, waiting patiently, until Jack has straightened himself.

He wants to savour every moment.

His movements are deliberate and slow, so Jack can get a good look at him retrieving the leash from his drawer. It’s a coiled, thin roll of black, gleaming leather.

"You kept it," Jack comments.

"I did."

Le Chiffre slings the end around the thin collar and fastens it, then yanks hard to test it. Without warning he begins to tug at the leash and lead Jack around, who follows him on his knees.

"Why don’t _you_ wear it," Jack mocks him, although he’s struggling to keep up, "you loved being leashed so much. I only needed to open the drawer and you were already on your knees, hard, whining."

Le Chiffre yanks again and Jack falls forward. His skirt pushes up, and Le Chiffre places his boot onto Jack’s arse, pressing down.

"I submit voluntarily," he says softly, "to me it’s a game. And nothing but a game. I can whine and beg and be hard for the leash but in the end I get up and can have you killed with one word. I hold your life in my hands. It’s all the power I really need, Jack."

He lifts his foot and crouches down, sliding his fingers into Jack’s curls and twisting them until Jack’s face is distorted with pain, his pretty mouth hanging half open.

"And you—you may be the one who fucks me, and think yourself powerful because of it. That’s your idea of dominance in your simple, little reptile brain. Yet every breath you take is borrowed from me."

Le Chiffre gets up and walks back to his chair, pulling Jack with him.

"You submit because you need it," Jack says, "don’t fool yourself."

"Now," Le Chiffre says, smiling, yanking the leash again and twisting its end around his knuckles, "show me your cock. Show me what a man you are. Jerk off for me."

Jack does not hesitate. With the nonchalance of a skilled whore, he strokes himself through the lace, teasing not only himself but also Le Chiffre. When he touches a spot on the underside, he twitches visibly, and Le Chiffre swallows. He remembers how often he licked that spot—a few inches below the frenulum—and how Jack would twitch exactly the way he does now. 

Le Chiffre would like it better if Jack would be less indifferent to his own debasement. 

Jack grins, as if he has read Le Chiffre’s thoughts, then pushes down his knickers, begins to stroke in earnest.

"Did you know men with smaller cocks have larger prostates? They can cum better with a cock up their ass than by jerking their own cocks," Jack says. Le Chiffre watches him with detached amusement, eyes narrowing when Jack speeds up.

"Is that so?"

"I remember your stupid, blissed out face when I fucked you through your third orgasm. God, your whole pretense of authority and power gone when you were pushing your ass up to beg me for more. Only I could give it to you. You were never able to come using your fingers, your toys, or other men’s cocks. You were born to be my fuckpiece."

"You talk too much," Le Chiffre says, pulling Jack forward and pressing his face into his crotch.

He unzips his trousers and pulls out his erection.

Jack licks it, then closes his lips around the tip. The heat of Jack’s mouth takes Le Chiffre’s breath away.

He resists the urge to lean back, to let himself enjoy it, and remains upright, looming over Jack, then finally twists his fingers into Jack’s curls as he begins to fuck Jack’s mouth, as mercilessly as he can. He wants to inflict pain on Jack.

To Le Chiffre’s dismay the familiar hot pleasure builds up quickly. His predicament is not lost on Jack either, who, while still sucking Le Chiffre’s cock, makes sure to lock eyes with him, to mock him. 

For a moment, he closes his eyes and blinks lazily, then surges forward, letting Le Chiffre’s cock slide into his throat. Le Chiffre has always admired Jack for this skill, but then again, he guesses it’s a basic, necessary skill for whores: they’d have to be able to make clients cum fast. Jack’s lips are pressed against his groin.

The pleasure turns into something blinding and white and Le Chiffre manages to pull out at the last minute to paint Jack’s face with his cum.

Jack hates being dominated, has always hated being on his knees. He has never enjoyed submission or humiliation, not the way Le Chiffre does. He has never understood the relief it brought Le Chiffre to relinquish power willingly maybe because he never had enough to relinquish in the first place.

Until Jack left, Le Chiffre had thought their dynamic was in a state of perfect balance: Jack, who craved control, and him enjoying being dominated by Jack. They didn’t go far—none of them had any interest in being active participants in a fully developed BDSM role play, but they were venturing into the territory.

Smiling, he slips a metal cockring onto Jack’s erection. He shows him the whip, then begins to mark Jack with it, reminding himself with every hit, how Jack loathes this. And indeed, once Le Chiffre is finished and the pale skin is covered in fine, red marks, Jack looks up at him, impotent fury in his eyes.

"Now fuck me as hard as you can," Le Chiffre instructs and lifts the whip one last time, laying a perfect stroke across Jack’s face, "tell yourself you’re dominating me if you like."

Jack, baring his teeth in anguish, grabs Le Chiffre by his hips and doesn’t waste a moment before he begins to fuck in to him. His brutal thrusts are fuelled by blatant hatred and Le Chiffre cherishes the pain. He takes the leash again and yanks, just because he wants it.

"Harder," he orders Jack, "surely you can do better."

In the large mirror across the room he watches Jack moving, tries to focus on his body—he’s only a body after all, and nothing else—the abs, the pecs, the hard nipples.

Le Chiffre knows he will bleed from this. He will cut himself open, and all of Jack will bleed out of him, and he’ll be in peace.

He yanks at Jack’s leash again, scolds him like a dog, berates him, and Jack punishes him beautifully by pulling out entirely, then slamming his cock back in, grabbing Le Chiffre’s hair and holding him in place.

"What the fuck is it you want," Jack hisses as he thrusts so hard, the arm chair slides across the floor.

Le Chiffre wishes he would shut up and just do as he has been told.

This time he won’t make Jack stop. He’ll see it through.

"Tell me," Jack insists and bites into Le Chiffre’s neck.

"Tell me," he asks again, as he snaps his hips against Le Chiffre

"Fucking tell me,” Jack demands every time he pushes his cock into Le Chiffre.

"I want you to pay for what you did to me,” Le Chiffre shouts, and in the same moment, horrified by his loss of control, resists the urge to press his hand against his lips. 

Jack moves inside him, slower now. He lays a hand onto his shoulder, caresses his collar bone with a calloused thumb.

"Then fucking kill me and get it over with," he says, his voice broken.

Jack delivers a final thrust, and Le Chiffre can feel him throb and cum. Even after all this time, his body reacts just the same to Jack’s orgasm as it used to, and Le Chiffre cums, almost against his will. He feels himself convulsing, milking every drop out of Jack’s cock.

It seems an eternity has passed when Jack finally pulls out. He falls to his knees, then sits back on the carpeted floor.

Le Chiffre straightens himself, unwilling to reveal to Jack how exhausted he is. Sharp pain pulses from his backside to his lower back. He wonders if he is bleeding yet.

"Let her go," Jack says after a long moment of silence, "she hasn’t done anything to you. She means nothing to me. She’s not the reason I left."

Le Chiffre has expected that much.

"What if I told you, you’d have to choose. Your life or hers."

Le Chiffre watches Jack’s face. All he finds is resignation, but not a trace of fear. 

"You want to destroy me, then do it," Jack whispers, "Break me. Killing her won’t fill the void in your heart. Maybe killing me will."

"Maybe she does mean more to you then, after all." 

Le Chiffre is sickened by the look on Jack’s face. The expression of grief and regret and affection. 

"Does she fill a void in your heart?’

"Not everyone’s like you," Jack laughs, "I just want her to live, regardless of whether she is important to me or not. I just don’t want her life to end because she had the misfortune of meeting me."

Le Chiffre smiles into his drink.

Casually he stands to take a box of tissues from a shelf near the arm chair and wipes Jack’s cum off the inner side of his thighs, tossing them into a waste paper basket. Walking to the large desk at the end of the room, he forces fluidity into his movements to conceal the considerable pain he is in, knowing Jack is watching him. Then he pulls out a thick stack of files, leafing through them as if he is looking at pictures of a pleasant vacation.

"How much do you usually charge for the boyfriend experience?" he says, scrutinising a photo before putting it back into the stack.

Jack stares at him, blankly.

"What?"

Le Chiffre has found what he has been looking for. 

With a thin folder in his hand he returns to the spot Jack is sitting at and drops it into his lap.

Jack hesitates at first, then opens the folder and Le Chiffre waits with bated breath. He’s not surprised, if mildly disappointed Jack doesn’t even bat an eyelid.

"So you knew," he only says, looking at the photographs of his younger self and Jenny, the curly-headed, American girl.

"How could you think I didn’t?"

"I don’t know," Jack shrugs, "I didn’t think you’d care."

"Don’t worry. I don’t,” Le Chiffre assures him.

“And yet you snooped in my past like a jealous husband.”

"Did you fuck her?"

"Yes," Jack says, in a tired voice. "I think I was in love—for a moment at least. Then I ruined it. I made some bad decisions. Got myself nearly killed. Got someone else killed. After I returned to Paris we ran into each other. I was in a bad place. She helped me, despite the fact that I had fucked her over. She let me stay at her place, paid for food, for everything. At least now we can share the rent, since I’ve begun to work again."

"Does she know you’re a whore?"

Jack laughs.

"You have to stop trying to needle me with these kind of slurs. I know you’re trying to get to me but it just reveals how much of a fucking bigot you are."

He shakes his head.

"She thinks I’m working in a restaurant, as a kitchen helper."

Jack looks down at a picture of a blond woman. If he were to guess, Le Chiffre would peg her as American. 

She is long gone, rotting in a Parisian grave. At least someone who is afforded peace.

Jack caresses her cheekbone with his thumb, in an alarmingly tender way.

"I was so young," he says to her photograph, and Le Chiffre can’t help the odd feeling Jack has momentarily forgotten where he is. 

"I was a cruel, silly boy. I’m sorry you met me."

Le Chiffre feels bile rise in the back of his throat.

Of course. He should have known—the hold dead lovers have over the living is stronger than anything else. He had been resentful of the girl—Jenny—but maybe he had been wrong. Maybe it is not her who holds Jack’s affection.

He is surprised at the wrath and fury he’s feeling at seeing Jack caress the photograph of the dead woman—mourning someone he cannot reach any longer.

It’s as if Jack is removed from him. As if there’s nothing Le Chiffre can do to touch him. He will not have that.

His anger muddles his thoughts.

"Let me see what you sell as the boyfriend experience," Le Chiffre hears himself say, "I’m sure you excel at it."

Every word tastes like poison, bitter and lethal.

Jack doesn’t reply immediately. He keeps staring at the woman’s picture. 

When he looks up and meets Le Chiffre’s gaze, his eyes are full of unshed tears.

"You want to play," he tells Le Chiffre, "so let’s play."


	6. Entrée

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I frequently thought of abandoning this unloved rare-pair, but somehow Jack and Le Chiffre keep haunting me.
> 
> I'm distracted through work so my writing isn't exactly amazing—sorry.
> 
> This would be even worse without StaticRaining's help. Additionally this time I had help from Schemingreader! All remaining errors are mine!
> 
> * * *

Vienna 2004

The first time Jack called _him_ it was a late summer afternoon.

Jack never called his clients.

He had explained his rules early on to Le Chiffre. Clients had to call him if they wanted an appointment. He would never, ever call his clients. It was a business rule. 

The phone vibrated on the polished wood surface of the conference table, and the woman from Credit Suisse looked up, a little annoyed, and pushed her glasses back.

„Would you like to take that?“ she asked finally.

Usually, Le Chiffre would have muted the call and continued the meeting—but this time he mumbled an apology, took the phone and left the room. Kratt tried not to look scandalised. Le Chiffre had never before interrupted an important business meeting to take a private phone call.

„Is it ok if I call you?“

Jack sounded as if he was standing on a busy street. A group of Italian tourists was chatting, somewhere behind Jack

„Yes, of course,“ Le Chiffre heard himself saying.

„You said you’re at the Hyatt Am Hof today? So, I was wondering if you wanna have a quick coffee with me. Or you know a quick something. I’m in the area—in front of the Hotel Orient.“

Le Chiffre looked at the closed conference room doors.

He shouldn’t even consider it.

On the other hand, the whole business was wrapped up—Le Chiffre had signed off the documents, had confirmed all important transactions and discussed the strategy for the next few months. He didn’t really need to be here. Of course, it would have been polite to invite his new investors to a dinner but the Credit Suisse woman looked uncomfortable to be in the same room as him anyway, and she was the one who counted, whose favour he needed to curry.

„I’ll call you back in a minute,“ he told Jack and pocketed his phone.

He debated with himself for another moment, then returned to the conference room.

„I’m sorry,“ he began, „but something urgent has come up.“

The three men and four women looked up from their thick reports and documents.

The Credit Suisse woman reacted the fastest, the relief in her face palpable, „Well, we have already finalised everything that required your presence—we’re only going through the documents you submitted. So far everything seems in order and we can send the papers with the letter of credit to your client’s bank, facilitate the transfer next week. And I will be on my way back to Zurich tonight.“

She smiled her first genuine smile.

„Excellent,“ Le Chiffre beamed, then shook her hand, „a pleasure to do business with you! I hope next time we meet I can show you the beauty of Vienna and take you to my favourite restaurant!“

„Of course, absolutely!“ the woman smiled.

Everyone stood, some of them bewildered but nonetheless relieved—Le Chiffre had this effect on people—shook hands with him, and then Le Chiffre strode out, followed by his own, equally bewildered, men.

He felt … positively energised. Adventurous.

„I’ll meet you at the hotel,“ he told Jack, „I just took off the afternoon and will be with you in ten minutes.“

Jack made an undignified whooping sound.

„Awesome,“ he said, sounding very American in that moment.

When he looked up from his phone call, he realised he stood in front of a huge baroque mirror, and confused, did not immediately recognise himself—that wide boyish grin, the slightly flushed cheeks.

Further away his men stood, patiently waiting for the orders of their boss, clad in black suits and with their hands clasped together. Their faces were blank, but Le Chiffre could feel their unease. Kratt adjusted his tie.

He schooled his face back into a neutral expression.

 

Jack waited in front of the Orient, leaning on a street post. He was wearing fashionably tight dark denims, a tan leather jacket. Jack’s face was bathed in the golden light of the afternoon sun. Even from a distance the irises of his eyes were eerily opaque, an intense, unusual shade of turquoise. People walking by turned their heads.

In this moment it dawned on Le Chiffre that men like Jack were inherently dangerous. He had been warned about creatures like Jack.

In the course of his life Le Chiffre had seen powerful people fall for love, for lust, for addiction. In the end it did not matter if it was a woman, a man, heroin, gambling: the desire of the heart, however unreasonable, however dangerous, however destructive defeated them.

He had witnessed his fair share of cautionary tales.

(And yet—even Le Chiffre could not resist the siren song of 'The ending of my story will be different' in the back of his mind.)

Perhaps there was, after all, a poison for everyone, out there in the world, and one day it would come and find you.

Then again, Le Chiffre assured himself, he wasn’t in any danger—he had no heart to lose.

„Please don’t be angry—I already booked the Emperor Suite,“ Jack whispered against Le Chiffre’s lips, „I thought you’d prefer if I did the booking.“

 

The Orient was one of the most famous of the _Stundenhotels_ , as the Viennese called them--hotels that let by the hour. Since the 17th century, artists and aristocrats had met there for assignations. The Austrian emperor Franz Josef himself had regularly visited it with the concubine that his wife, the empress Elisabeth, had handpicked for him.

Le Chiffre preferred the newly re-opened Grand Hotel with its updated amenities but Jack seemed to be fond of the Orient.

When Le Chiffre had asked him, he admitted he came here whenever he could: his johns however did not belong to the kind of rich men who wanted to get laid in freshly pressed linen—they preferred to suck him off in the stall of a public restroom, for a few euros.

(This was another barrier that had fallen between them: When Jack had spoken about clients before he had alluded to affluent benefactors, wealthy clients. Now he didn’t bother with lying or up-selling his clients anymore.)

„Want me to suck your cock?“ he asked.

„Do you prefer having your cock sucked, or sucking cock?“ Le Chiffre asked, genuinely curious.

„I don’t mind sucking, but I think you enjoy it a lot more than I do,“ Jack replied with a sly, little smile.

He moved up, until he was almost sitting on Le Chiffre’s face.

„And now show me how much you like it,“ he ordered, in a tone that brooked no argument. „Suck my cock.“

Every time he was with Jack, Le Chiffre discovered new things about himself. Only recently he had realised he liked taking orders from Jack, liked pleasing him and receiving praise for it. He felt good obeying. It should have alarmed him maybe, but it didn't. Jack, clever as he was, indulged him.

Looking up at Jack, Le Chiffre opened his mouth, licking the thick shaft. The glans was pink, and slightly wet at the tip. He suckled it, wanting more of the salty precum. Jack lifted himself slightly up so he could fuck into Le Chiffre’s mouth. There was an urgency in his movements Le Chiffre found incredibly arousing: it looked less practiced and real. Emboldened, he sucked vigorously, eagerly. Spit and precum dripped down his chin and he made slurping, undignified noises. Jack pushed his cock deeper, and Le Chiffre gagged, but he did nothing to push Jack off—instead he smiled around the shaft. Jack gazed down at him, his red lips slightly parted, and his eyes, strangely dark, nearly purple.

„You suck cock like a pro,“ Jack said, „and that means a lot coming from me.“

He grinned, licking his lips.

The slight sadism in Jack’s voice excited Le Chiffre more than it should.

Finally he pulled out. Le Chiffre took a deep breath and chased the tip with his tongue. Jack slapped his cheek with his cock, then moved down again.

Le Chiffre felt Jack stroking his perineum and spread his legs.

„Yeah, that’s right,“ Jack mumbled, then slid his fingers inside. Le Chiffre arched up.

„Fuck, your hole is so greedy, you’re literally sucking me in,“ Jack moaned.

Le Chiffre realised how he loved Jack’s voice becoming thick and wild and desperate. He sounded as if he was consumed by desire, as if he needed Le Chiffre, as if he would die if could not be inside him, and of course Le Chiffre told himself, that Jack was just very good in what he was doing—a true professional. Nothing aboutit was real. 

Jack fumbled around with the small, complimentary bottle of lube, removed an artfully tied ribbon, then poured some onto his fingers, some directly onto Le Chiffre’s hole. He added another finger, crooked them and Le Chiffre’s jaw went slack with pleasure.

„I love how much you love this,“ Jack whispered.

Le Chiffre began to clench around his fingers, canted his hips.

„Fuck me, Jack,“ he begged, his voice hoarse. By now he wasn’t shy about begging Jack anymore. It had become part of their play, and he loved how Jack’s eyes darkened and his lips parted every time he said it.

„How much do you love my cock?“ Jack pulled it out, stroked it, applied lube and showed it to Le Chiffre.

„This what you need?“

„Yes,“ Le Chiffre said. „Please. Oh god.“

The things he liked he had at first conveyed nonverbally, through touch, a shift of his body, a nod, wordlessly turning around, offering himself. He could not imagine him saying the things he needed out loud. Then he had used sound to make his pleasure known. Silent gasps, moans, in the end even screams.

After seeing what effect they seemed to have on Jack, he loved to use words and speak dirty. He did not feel shy or tense anymore, as he had done in the beginning. The more he debased himself the more furious and harder Jack’s thrusts became. Le Chiffre made a show of desperately pleading to be fucked, screaming expletives when he came.

Outside the bed, Jack was of course, outspoken and direct, yet courteous when it came to Le Chiffre’s preferences, politely determined to give Le Chiffre a perfect experience: Did he prefer to lie on his back or on his stomach? Would he like to cum on his face? Would he like Jack to be gentle or rougher? Would he like to tie him up, would he like to be the one to be tied up?

He was, however, far less forthcoming when it came to his own tastes. No matter what Le Chiffre decided, he smiled and nodded. Yet he never made any requests or demands himself.

When he was honest with himself he didn’t always like that. He found the ease with which Jack adopted his boyish, sweet manners so soon after he fucked him like a whore unsettling. 

Le Chiffre would have never noticed with anyone else. He had never had any interest in learning what his other lovers desired or who they were. When it came to Jack, however, Le Chiffre found he wanted to know what he imagined when he closed his eyes before he came.

Despite Jack’s demonstrative openness, the oftentimes performative vulgarity of a seasoned sex worker, he remained elusive.

However, a few exceptions had been occurring only recently:

One night, during a prolonged session of fucking, their passion had not abated but continued to grow, like a fire that refused to go out, despite Le Chiffre’s and Jack’s exhaustion. Both their bodies seemed incapable of seeking each other out as if they were each other’s nourishment. During an especially wild moment Jack leant forward, gripped Le Chiffre’s throat and squeezed. Le Chiffre’s eyes, before unfocused and half closed, shot open in surprise. Above him, Jack’s eyes were dark, black like a starless night sky. His teeth were slightly bared and then he thrust into Le Chiffre, moaning.

Before Le Chiffre could react Jack yanked his hand away, staring wide-eyed at him.

He began uttering apologies, but Le Chiffre thought that for the first time, he had seen a glimpse of Jack’s true face.

Slowly, without looking away from Jack’s face, he took his hand and placed it back on his throat.

„Please,“ he said.

For a moment, Jack’s expression remained unreadable. Then he began to exert pressure, gently at first, but when Le Chiffre arched up and against him, urging him to push in deeper, something naked and raw ignited in his eyes, and Le Chiffre knew that now he had seen something of Jack he hadn't intended to show anyone. To him, it was as good as having a piece of him.

He could not say he derived pleasure from being choked himself but he definitely derived pleasure from seeing Jack feeling and expressing pleasure. Jack’s movements—usually precise and well-timed—faltered, and he began to pound into him, almost senselessly, as if he wasn’t able to control himself any longer.

Another time, when Jack had fucked Le Chiffre on the floor of his bedroom, he had forgotten himself and slapped his face—Le Chiffre had cum hard, seeing stars, red-hot pleasure exploding in him. Jack had again, profusely apologised, and ignored Le Chiffre telling him, that it hadn’t hurt at all (It had hurt like hell). He had begun to cradle Le Chiffre, peppering his face with kisses, whispering how much he loved him, how sorry he was.

They had fallen asleep together, in each other’s embrace, like children.

Le Chiffre couldn’t forget this incident. Every time he thought of it, his heart began to race. He realised he enjoyed and craved both: the violence and the surprising, brutal way it had played out, but also the moments after, when Jack had clung to him, had held him.

A few weeks after the incident, Le Chiffre bought a whip for Jack to use on him—a dainty, little thing with a black, glossy handle. Jack had smiled blankly at him, thanked him for the pretty gift but didn’t use it until one day, after a night of fucking fuelled by alcohol and coke, Jack asked him about it. Le Chiffre opened the drawer of his bedside stand and pressed the whip into Jack’s hands. Jack stared intently at it, his fingers shaking as he stroke the smooth surface of the handle. 

Le Chiffre pushed his pale bum up, couldn’t suddenly wait for the whip to mark him, for the cutting pain.

Jack entered him again, sliding easily into his stretched, wet hole and started laying fine red stripes over his white skin. Le Chiffre did not enjoy the pain, but he enjoyed Jack panting behind him, Jack losing every ounce of control by pounding into him. When Le Chiffre began to vocalise, softly crying out whenever the whip hit him, Jack cried out too, thrusting hard into him and came.

Jack collapsed on top of him, then scrambled off.

„Fuck, I’m so sorry—are you ok?“

It was obvious that Jack was distressed. He pulled Jack into his arms, almost rocking him like a child until he calmed down. He didn’t stop apologising despite Le Chiffre assuring him over and over again that he was fine.

In the morning, Le Chiffre had to leave for a business trip. He showered, put on his trousers and pulled his wallet out of his jacket, leaving a few hundred euro notes onto the nightstand.

„You don’t have to pay tonight,“ Jack said.

Le Chiffre raised a quizzical eyebrow.

„I didn’t service you,“ Jack said, red-faced. „My behaviour was risky and unprofessional. I don’t want you to pay for that. I can do better.“

Le Chiffre thought for a moment.

„What if you were to work exclusively for me? I’d pay you an excellent salary.“

Jack’s stood from the bed and closed the short distance between them, helping Le Chiffre to button his shirt.

„You could be an employee in one of my companies. You’d get a job title, a salary,“ Le Chiffre repeated, „benefits and holidays.“

He smiled at his own joke, but Jack did not smile.

„Why?“ he asked simply.

Le Chiffre blinked. As often when being nervous he felt a tear well up in his bad eye. Before he could reach for his tissue, Jack dabbed his eye with his thumb.

„I don’t have any bankable skills,“ Jack said, in a matter of fact tone, „I can’t work a PC, I’ve never worked in an office before, I haven’t even graduated from high school. I’m not suited for manual labour like construction work or carpentry. I’ve never held a single job longer than a few weeks. I’m not well read or a particularly fast learner. In fact I don’t like to work. My only talent is making people cum. It’s the only job I excel at and that I enjoy.“

„Perfect skill set. You’re hired,“ Le Chiffre said.

Jack laughed.

„No, I want to know why,“ he said then, „you can hire anyone you like. Don’t bullshit me. Please.“

Le Chiffre looked at him.

„The truth?“ he asked.

The truth was that on a warm pre-summer day, Le Chiffre had stayed (once again) longer than the allotted two hours in Jack’s tiny studio. He had rescheduled work appointments, while watching Jack cooking a simple dinner for them, just wearing a t-shirt, padding around barefoot. The window had been open, and the sound of chirping birds and the heavy, too-sweet scent of lilac had filled the room.

Later they had eaten in peace, chatting over mundane things.

After dinner they had sat on the window sill, Le Chiffre in one of Jack’s t-shirts and his underwear, and Jack only wearing Le Chiffre’s linen shirt. Every now and then they could hear the sounds of the hooves of the fiaker horses on the old cobblestoned streets.

One of the neighbours had been playing Turkish music and occasionally delicious cooking smells from the windows next to them had wafted into their room.

Jack had been smoking one of his Gitanes and Le Chiffre had watched blue smoke curl out through his parted lips and nostrils.

„Public baths opened a month ago, did you know,“ he had said.

„Ah.“ Le Chiffre hadn’t known that.

„The Viennese have almost always low temperatures in May. The summer in this region rarely starts before the end of June but somehow when it’s about their public baths they seem to be eternally optimistic. They always, unfailingly open on May 1st, regardless of the weather.“

„I can rent a villa with a swimming pool if you like,“ Le Chiffre had offered.

Jack had just laughed.

„Or we go to the public bath. We sit amidst families with noisy children, and old men reading newspapers and old women playing cards. I’ll pack us some food, some drinks. We can just laze in the sun and eat sandwiches.“

Jack had taken another drag from his cigarette, turning his head away to blow the smoke out of the window.

„And later, in the afternoon, we can wander down and have dinner at a pizzeria and sit outside and watch the sun go down.“

In that moment, Le Chiffre had known he wanted Jack.

Not only for a few hours, not only for a few nights in the week. But … longer. Forever was a concept that didn’t exist, and even less for men like him. But for as long as possible.

Other people had such things too after all.

And what if he had to pay? He was used to paying for things.

Beautiful things never came for free. Le Chiffre had learned this lesson so early on in his life, he had never thought of questioning it. And Jack was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

That was when he had known, Le Chiffre realised.

„But why?“ Jack repeated. He looked strangely concerned, panicked even.

Le Chiffre burned with the longing to tell him of this moment—he hadn’t been certain of something in such a long time. He had not quite been able to decipher that tight feeling in his chest back then, but he had already had his suspicion: that he had felt happiness, and that happiness was an addictive substance.

He wanted more of it, now that he knew how it tasted, how it felt.

„I enjoy pretty things,“ Le Chiffre said instead. „If I see something I like, I buy it. I don’t have great impulse control.“

Something like tension bled out of Jack’s face. The concerned look was replaced by relief.

„Ah, I see, a collector,“ he smiled, then kissed him.

„Do we have a deal?“ Le Chiffre asked, realising he sounded too eager.

Jack was silent for a long time, then quietly said, „I don’t have any papers. I can’t show up in any records. I don’t have a bank account. As long as you understand—“

Le Chiffre understood.

„In cash then,“ he just said.


End file.
